It's hard to believe that the pandemic brought people closer together, but that's exactly what happened to Brooke and Maddie. The truth is, they were two unlikely friends pushed together by their circumstances. Maddie had just left behind her life in California and Brooke transferred colleges in the most isolating time. Brooke, quite desperate for a friend at the time, saw Maddie on a zoom call for class and immediately reached out. What started as Zoom conversations about class turned into a meeting for coffee at the Depot for the first time, and soon, the two were bonding over shared interests and laughing into rigatoni at dinner together.

The two often joke that if it weren't for the pandemic, they likely would have never been friends. From 2020 to 2021, it was just them two against the world, against covid, against grueling 8 A.M. classes where they would play Poptropica in class together.

And then the world started to open up again. The two could have gone out and made new friends, but the truth was, they both knew they only wanted each other.

Brooke and Maddie's friendship turned into something more (but neither would ever admit it). When one laughed, the other thought they lit up the room. Passing each other in the hall made a bad day better.

On October 22, 2021, Maddie and Brooke finally admitted their feelings for each other. Two years later, in November, Maddie proposed to Brooke at The Twelve Oaks in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. Brooke proposed to Maddie in December at the first place they went on a date together, The Hattiesburg Pocket Museum. Together, the two have built a beautiful life together with their two cats, and still share laughs over rigatoni together just like old times.